


I Call It The Drunk Giraffe

by LadyPuck



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: FIx It, Gen, M/M, Slash Goggles, Spoilers!, pretty gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:23:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPuck/pseuds/LadyPuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A wee little fix-it drabble for the end of "The Sign of Three" featuring a certain Drunk Giraffe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Call It The Drunk Giraffe

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this brilliant post:  
> http://thegreatestlovestoryevertold.tumblr.com/post/72386934013/how-it-should-have-ended-actually-this-was-the

**"The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing." ~ James Brown**

It's a terrible feeling, to be a sad man lost in a sea of happy people. Sherlock felt the guests moving around him, graceful and awkward alike, and wondered if there was a place for him in their circles, by their sides. He wondered, all the while cursing himself for the juvenile and trite sentiment, if anyone would open their arms to him and let him just...dance.

But everywhere he looked, minute movements and turned faces dashed his hopes. The empty spaces he spied closed off with the sway of this dancer or the arrival of that friend. No one was cruel or maliciously denying him but then, no one saw him, which in itself was a type of unknowing cruelty. Sherlock felt a barrier between _him_ and _them_ keenly, a hazy reflection of the one that kept him stumbling through social niceties of life and never quite connecting.

Most days it was fine, it was a blessing even, to be free of the attachments and entanglements of _people_. After all, wasn't that the threat, the thing that got him into the most damnably uncomfortable and dangerous situations? _People_ all too easily became _targets_ ,  _frie_ _nds_ became _weaknesses._

But sometimes he wanted to dance, to touch someone delicately and intimately for the space of one song. Dancing with air and music could never match the brief whirl and heat of a partnered waltz or tango, could never replace that warm contact without pressure or commitment. He did so love to dance, because in that space of a dance he disguised himself better than any undercover work could ever allow. For the length of a song, he was normal, he was safe, he was a partner who knew all the steps and rules and wouldn't let the person in his arms down. An illusion but a powerful, addictive one.

Finding a partner, for even the brevity of a dance, was his problem. It took a certain mix of vulnerability and strength to ask for a dance and Sherlock, arrogant, confident Sherlock, found it more difficult to achieve than stepping into the path of a bullet. He could impose his theories and explanations, his brilliance and genius, but imposing _himself_ was a somehow different matter. Because really, without a case or a problem, who would want him, broken up inside and cruel and unable to make the connections to people that were valued so highly?

He looked around again, at the crowd of brightly dressed guests, tipsy and high on happiness and felt a pressure in his chest that he refused to admit was loneliness. Glancing to Janine he felt a brief sliver of hope and relief, only to have it wiped out in a rush of biting embarrassment when she pointed at her current partner, smiling face flushed with exercise. John and Mary of course were together, tightly wound and swaying contentedly, as were Molly and Tom he presumed, while Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson tripped over each other, laughing at themselves. All the rest, well, to paraphrase the Bard, what were they to him and he to they?

The door called him, an almost magnetic pull that would have him slip out into courtyard strung with festive fairy lights and then out to street and then...

Before he could make good on the impulse to flee something, _someone_ , caught his eye.

A whirl-a-gig of a man in tux wheeling toward him, arms flying in the air with abandon, face caught up in an exhilarated smile that sparked a warmth in him. A rare, real grin spread across his lips, his attention thoroughly captured and something rather like anticipation creeping up. The man dropped his arms as he drew closer, narrowly missing an older woman's gigantic hat. Swinging his hips, he zeroed onto Sherlock, bright eyes focused on his face.

"I call it the Drunk Giraffe!" The man's voice was warm and light and he dropped into a sloppy bow, one leg extended. "Might I have this dance?"

Sherlock's mind raced and his heart began to beat faster, deductions and impossibilities and hope mashing together as he tried to parse the man before him. A few seconds later, smile still on his face, Sherlock bowed back, form perfect and straight.

"The pleasure would be mine."

 

***

A few paces away, Molly smiled to herself, the worry that had begun to spin in her stomach wiped away by the sight in front of her. She knew that if there was ever a being that could help heal the pain she knew Sherlock was in, it was her old friend.

And as she watched the two twirl in a frenzy of classically trained steps and wild invention, she thought that maybe the world's only consulting detective was just what the Doctor needed himself.

 

 

 


End file.
